Cracks

Add caption

My daily revelation:  It is not my job to fix my kids.  It is not my job to fix my husband.  It is not my job to fix the system.... wait, no, maybe that is my job.  Anyway, my point is not about becoming a poster child for social action or government reform, so we'll just forget about that last line for now.

I've said this before, but today as I spoke with a friend while driving home from a Religious Education Committee retreat, it really and truly hit me.  Hard.  Like a canoe paddle to the forehead when you're just out on the calm lake lookin' at the ducks.

My son has his issues.  For years we have been trying to fix his cracks.  Why?  So that he could fit into the round hole?  Or should I say, the blue plastic desk chair, the future suit and tie?

Maybe he likes to stand at the counter and maybe ties choke him.  Maybe he's not cracked.  Could it be that those "imperfections" in our children are what make them human?  What make them miraculous works of art?

Some children are perfectly happy sitting in that chair, and some adults are happy in that suit and tie.  They are lucky, because they fit the mold that society has established for us.  Or at least they're capable of working with what they've got.  I've recently had some pushback from a family member about our choice to home school.  They're argument?  "Everybody goes to school!"

My retort?  "If everybody jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge..."

Anyway, after home educating my children for over a month now, I realize that a lot of the stress in my life was caused by me not only trying to fix the cracks in my children... but also feeling somehow guilty that they were cracked at all, and that other people had to be around cracked children. I hated that feeling.  I hated myself for feeling it.

My dad had a saying when I was a kid.  "I love you so much that I want other people to like you."  Sounds simple enough.  But at what expense?  And how does one go about shaping a human being so that other people like them?  And what people?

My son has some incredible qualities.  He is immediately accepting of anyone, regardless of age, physical ability, religion, et cetera.  He is tender hearted and funny.  He is smart and outgoing.  I feel like those qualities were not given the right space to shine at school.  They were hidden behind his colon disorder (crack), his ADhD (crack), his sensetivity (crack), is social "youngness" (crack).  He spent his entire third grade year sitting alone in the cafeteria at lunch.  It hurt me so much inside. I wanted him to fit in so badly.

Now that he is home, the space is right for him to be simply who he is.  He can be socially young, playing make-believe with his sister and cuddling with his dog or his mom.  He can be sensetive and cry.  He doesn't have to sit down to do his math, or try to sit quietly while the other children finish a worksheet that it took him minutes to complete.  But the most incredible difference, the one that has relieved so much of his stress and mine, is that his colon disorder is starting to heal.

He hasn't had a soiling accident in well over ten days.  I remember spending that last half hour in the morning before the bus picked up the kids in absolute panick if he wasn't able to have a bowel movement before school.  He was stressed and anxious because he knew I was stressed and anxious.  I knew the chances of him having an accident at school were greater if he wasn't able to go in the morning.  I think he did, too.  But it was an incredible struggle each and every day.

I would spend every school day with my cell phone by my side, just hoping and praying that it wouldn't ring.  That I wouldn't have to go bring him extra clothing.  Because I knew every time he had a soiling accident he alienated himself from his peers.  He became a target for their sneers and teasing.  The guidance counsellor desperately tried to help, but there's no stopping the social circus once it pulls into town.

Isn't he handsome?

Now.... Ahhhh.... We have quiet mornings together.  By early afternoon, if he hasn't had a bowel movement, I gently remind him that he might want to try.  But I haven't had to do that lately.  He's actually been noticing his body's workings (his colon's nervous system is restoring itself).  I think getting rid of screens (tv, video games, etc), and taking away all of that stress that he was experiencing, have together been a healing force for him physically and emotionally. 

It seems like the more we tried to "fix" him, (with therapy and neurofeedback and food eliminationa and medication and chiropractic) the more he started thinking he was someone who needed to be fixed.

Now, I look at my son and see this colorful peice of artwork.  Those aren't cracks after all.  They are strokes of him.  All I had to do was hang him in the right gallery, and provide a little light, to help him shine.